Resources: Data

Data on staffing in long-term care facilities

One thing to look at when investigating long-term care facilities is staffing.

Staffing is one of the measures used in the five-star rating system. It may be helpful to compare this data with general information on currently active nursing homes, including number of certified beds, quality measure scores, and other five-star criteria.

Jordan Rau of Kaiser Health News did an eye-opening report that showed that most nursing homes had fewer nurses and caretaking staff than they had reported to the government for years.

CMS Payroll Based Journal (PBJ) staffing data is submitted by long-term care facilities. Data are presented as one row per work day, for each facility. Use this data to track actual (paid) staffing against what facilities report to CMS. Sort and filter data by numerous variables, such as size, state, ZIP code, CNA staffing per resident per day and more. Information is updated quarterly.